Frederic Francois Chopin was a Polish pianist and composer of French parentage. He was born in 1810 near Warsaw and died in 1849. He went to Paris in 1831 on account of the political troubles of Poland. He wrote numerous pieces for the pianoforte, chiefly in the form of nocturnes, polonaises, waltzes, and mazurkas; all of which display much poetic fancy, abounding in subtle ideas with graceful harmonic effects. Research Frederic Chopin
Sir Michael Costa was an Italian-born English musical composer and conductor of Spanish extraction. He was born in 1810 at Naples of an old Spanish family and died in 1884. In 1828 he came to England, and in 1839 became a naturalized British subject. He was conductor of the Philharmonic Society, the SacredHarmonic Society, Her Majesty's Opera, the Handel Festivals, etc. His chief works are the opera Don Carlos and the oratorios Eli and Naaman. He was knighted in 1869. Research Michael Costa
HF is an abbreviation for High Fantasy
HF is an abbreviation for High Frequency
HF is an abbreviation for Harmonic Filter
HF is an abbreviation for Height Finding
HF is an abbreviation for Home Forces Research HF
Harmonics are the accessory sounds accompanying the predominant and apparently simple tone of any string, pipe, or other sonorous body. No purely simple sound, ie no sound whose vibrations are all in the same period, is producible in nature. When a sound is produced by the vibration of an open string, the whole string vibrates as a unity, giving rise to a tone called the fundamental. The string, however, further divides into various sections, which vibrate separately and more rapidly, and produce sounds differing from the fundamental, but bearing certain fixed proportions to it. The first harmonic of the fundamental note of any string is that produced by half the string, and is the octave of the first; the second harmonic is given by the third of the string, and is the fifth or dominant of the fundamental note, and so on, the complete series of harmonics containing all the notes of the musical scale. But while harmonics enter into the composition of any musical sound from any vibrating body whatsoever, the different structure of different instruments suppresses now some now others of the succession of harmonics, and a different body of tone is thus produced, distinguishing a note in one instrument from the same note in another. These differences are called in English quality, in French timbre, in German klangfarbe. Research Harmonic
Jazz is a lively type of music which originated in America amongst the black community about 1900 possessing an identifiable history and describable stylistic evolution. Jazz has borrowed from black folk music, and popular music has borrowed from jazz, but these three kinds of music remain distinct and should not be confused with one another. Since its beginnings jazz has branched out into so many styles that no single description fits all of them with total accuracy. A few generalisations, however, can be made, bearing in mind that for all of them, exceptions can be cited. Performers of jazz improvise within the conventions of their chosen style. Typically, the improvisation is accompanied by the repeated chordprogression of a popular song or an original composition. Instrumentalists emulate black vocal styles, including the use of glissandi and slides, nuances of pitch (including blue notes, the microtonally flattened tones in the blues scale), and tonal effects such as growls and wails. In striving to develop a personal sound or tone colour-an idiosyncratic sense of rhythm and form and an individual style of execution-performers create rhythms characterised by constant syncopation (accents in unexpected places) and also by swing-a sensation of pull and momentum that arises as the melody is heard alternately together with, then slightly at variance with, the expected pulse or division of a pulse.
Written scores, if present, are used merely as guides, providing structure within which improvisation occurs. The typical instrumentation begins with a rhythm section consisting of piano, string bass, drums, and optional guitar, to which may be added any number of wind instruments. In big bands the winds are grouped into three sections-saxophones, trombones, and trumpets. Although exceptions occur in some styles, most jazz is based on the principle that an infinite number of melodies can fit the chord progressions of any song. The musician improvises new melodies that fit the chordprogression, which is repeated again and again as each soloist is featured, for as many choruses as desired. Although pieces with many different formal patterns are used for jazz improvisation, two formal patterns in particular are frequently found in songs used for jazz. One is the AABA form of popular- song choruses, which typically consist of 32 measures in 4(over)4 meter, divided into four 8- measure sections: section A; repeat of section A; section B (the 'bridge' or 'release,' often beginning in a new key); repeat of section A. The second form, with roots deep in black American folk music, is the 12-bar blues form. Unlike the 32-bar AABA form, blues songs have a fairly standardised chordprogression.
Jazz is rooted in the mingled musical traditions of American blacks. These include traits surviving from West African music; black folk music forms developed in the New World; European popular and light classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries; and later popular music forms influenced by black music or produced by black composers. Among the African survivals are vocal styles that include great freedom of vocal colour; a tradition of improvisation; call-and-response patterns; and rhythmic complexity-both syncopation of individual melodic lines and conflicting rhythms played by different members of an ensemble. Black folk music forms include field hollers, rowing chants, lullabies, and later, spirituals and blues. European music contributed specific styles and forms- hymns, marches, waltzes, quadrilles, and other dance music, light theatrical music, Italian operatic music-and also theoretical elements, in particular, harmony, as a vocabulary of chords and as a concept related to musical form. (Much European influence was absorbed through training in European music, even when the musicians so trained found work only in low-life entertainment districts and on Mississippi riverboats.)
Black-influenced elements of popular music that contributed to jazz include the banjo music of the minstrel shows (derived from the banjo music of slaves); the syncopated rhythmic patterns of black- influenced Latin American music (heard in southern US cities); the barrelhouse piano styles of tavern musicians in the Midwest; and marches and hymns as they were played by black brass bands in the late 19th century. Near the end of the 19th century another influential genre emerged. This was ragtime, a composed music that combined many elements, including syncopated rhythms (from banjo music and other black sources) and the harmonic contrasts and formal patterns of European marches.
After 1910 the bandleader W C Handy took another influential form, the blues, beyond its previously strictly oral tradition by publishing his original blues songs. (Favoured by jazz musicians, his songs found perhaps their greatest interpreter later, in the 1920s, in the blues singer BessieSmith, who recorded many of them.) The merging of these multiple influences into jazz is difficult to reconstruct, because it occurred before the phonograph could provide valuable documentation. Most early jazz was played in small marching bands or by solo pianists. Besides ragtime and marches, the repertoire included hymns, spirituals, and blues. The bands played this music, modified frequently by syncopations and acceleration, at picnics, weddings, parades, and funerals. Characteristically, the bands played dirges on the way to funerals and lively marches on the way back. Although blues and ragtime had arisen independently of jazz, and continued to exist alongside it, these genres influenced the style and forms of jazz and provided important vehicles for jazz improvisation. Research Jazz
A jew's harp is a musical instrument in which a small frame flanks a narrow, flexible tongue attached at one end to the frame. The frame is held against the teeth near the free end of the tongue, which is set in vibration by various methods. The tongue produces only one tone; when the shape of the player's mouth cavity is altered, various harmonics of this fundamental tone are made prominent. The harmonic series produced is the same as that of a trumpet. Jew's harps of India and, at least since about 1350, of Europe have onion-shaped forged-iron frames that narrow to two protruding arms; a separate tongue is affixed to the frame. The player twangs the free end of the tongue with a finger. Clothespin-shaped jew's harps with the frame and tongue cut of the same piece of bamboo are found in Oceania (often sounded by jerking a cord attached to the instrument). In South-east Asian jew's harps, probably the oldest form, the narrow, rectangular frame (of bamboo or, rarely, sheet metal) completely surrounds the free end of the tongue, which is vibrated by plucking a tab on the flexible frame. In New Guinea jew's harps are made from a live beetle tied to a small splinter of wood and held to the mouth. The beetle buzzes at a constant pitch and the notes are formed by the movements of the player's lips. Research Jew's Harp
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Abbreviations
Research Frederic Chopin
